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public health
Scientists Sue as Trump Administration Tries to Deliver 'Crushing Blow' to Behavioral and Brain Research
"It's scientific self-sabotage, and the American public will ultimately pay the price in the discoveries never made and lives never changed for the better."
Nov 09, 2026
Some scientists and scientific societies sued President Donald Trump's administration in the District of Massachusetts on Monday for shutting down the entity that provides nearly two-thirds of federal funding for basic academic research in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences.
The administration's effort to eliminate the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) "is a disservice to the American public and a crushing blow to the behavioral and brain sciences," declared Juliane Baron, executive director of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS).
"When I think about the biggest challenges facing people across our country—advancing health and well-being, providing economic and physical security for our loved ones—these are all inherently human questions," Baron stressed. "We can't solve pressing societal challenges without understanding humans."
FABBS partnered with the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP), the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS), and two researchers—University of Massachusetts Amherst lecturer Jenna Croteau and Boston College assistant professor Gregg Sparkman—in the lawsuit, which Democracy Forward filed on their behalf.
Over the past century, the complaint explains, "SBE research has driven some of the most groundbreaking innovations in nearly every aspect of modern life—from the way doctors match kidney donors with patients, to how governments approach economic policy, national security, and international relations, to the models behind Google's search engine."
"SBE research has helped mitigate the opioid crisis, the spread of diseases like Ebola and Covid-19, and evolving threats posed by cyberhackers and terrorist networks in the United States and abroad," notes the filing. "And it has transformed economics."
As the complaint details:
When the Trump-Vance administration took office, it deemed these fields “woke.” In its 2026 budget proposal, the administration urged Congress to cut funding for the SBE Directorate. Congress refused. The congressional report that accompanied NSF's January 2026 appropriation expressly directed NSF not to reduce SBE’s budget by more than 5%.
Three months later, NSF decided to shutter the directorate anyway. On April 3, 2026—without a director, and without consulting the National Science Board, the body Congress required to make such decisions—NSF leadership announced that it would unilaterally "close-out" the SBE Directorate in fiscal year 2027. Since the April 3 decision, the agency has stopped funding opportunities for basic SBE research, released the scientists who work in the directorate on assignment from universities, and reassigned nearly all the directorate's permanent staff.
"The administration's dismantling of SBE is not only reckless; it is illegal," emphasized Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman. "NSF provided no public explanation for its decision to close the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate, and this dangerous dismissal of scientific expertise is a threat to crucial scientific research. We are honored to work with this coalition to challenge the administration's crusade against science and the unlawful closure of the directorate."
Coalition members highlighted the importance of them prevailing in court, particularly in the current era of rapidly developing artificial intelligence with inadequate safeguards. SANS president Jennifer Kubota said that "understanding how the brain shapes trust, cooperation, emotion, and social behavior is essential to addressing some of society's most pressing challenges, from social isolation and polarization to the rapid emergence of AI."
"Eliminating NSF SBE funding for this research threatens decades of scientific progress and the next generation of scientists," Kubota continued. "Research opportunities lost today cannot simply be recovered tomorrow. We risk losing not only critical discoveries, but also the talented researchers who will make them."
A coalition of scientific societies and individual scientists has united to challenge the unlawful closure of the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate (SBE) of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Happy to support SESP in joining this lawsuit.democracyforward.org/news/press-r...
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— Kate A. Ratliff (@kateratliff.bsky.social) November 9, 2026 at 1:02 PM
Columbia University professor and FABBS board member Jon Freeman delivered a similar warning, arguing that "we cannot allow this administration to shoot America in the foot."
"American behavioral science has transformed everything from the algorithms powering our technology to how we strengthen human connection, overcome social divisions, improve public health, and make better decisions in our everyday lives," he said. "Dismantling SBE would devastate a vital part of our scientific workforce at precisely the moment we need it most, as AI reshapes society. It's scientific self-sabotage, and the American public will ultimately pay the price in the discoveries never made and lives never changed for the better."
SESP executive officer Steven J. Stroessner also not only acknowledged the past but looked toward the future: "For decades, federal support for basic research in social psychology has helped us understand how people think, make decisions, and relate to one another. The resulting discoveries have strengthened our nation by improving education, informing public policy, fostering cooperation, and helping us address some of society’s most persistent challenges. Dismantling that support threatens not only the research being conducted today, but the discoveries we have yet to imagine."
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El-Sayed Pledges to Probe RFK Jr. Over Summer’s ‘Crap Lettuce' Outbreak That Hit Michigan Hard
The senator-elect said he aims to probe "the decision-making that's gone on and what we need to do to solve the problem in its depth. And that takes understanding the nature of the problem."
Nov 06, 2026
Michigan was the epicenter of the cyclosporiasis outbreak that hit the United States last summer, and the state's new Democratic senator-elect plans to find out why after taking office in January.
Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed, who faced virulently racist attacks from members of the Trump administration, including Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., during his campaign, told CNN Thursday that he plans to investigate Kennedy's handling of the outbreak of the illness caused by the Cyclospora parasite, which sickened more than 15,000 Michiganders, hospitalized more than 370, and killed two people in the state.
El-Sayed emphasized that he is not out for "retribution for something past," but said an investigation into staffing cuts at HHS would be focused on "understanding what happened, holding people accountable for what they did, and then solving the problem moving forward."
"People need to feel it in their back pockets and in their homes," said El-Sayed.
The former public health official said the Trump administration had "DOGE-ed out the part of the Food and Drug Administration and the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] that was intended both to protect you from eating lettuce that had been defiled by somebody else, and counting the number of cases," referring to the Department of Government Efficiency.
Under the leadership of GOP megadonor Elon Musk, DOGE cut staffing at a CDC lab tasked with responding to Cyclospora and other parasitic outbreaks from 11 people to just three.
The US Department of Agriculture shut down three key research projects regarding the parasite, which can cause explosive diarrhea and other gastrointestinal symptoms when it contaminates food. Two of the projects were defunded by the Republican-controlled Congress, while a third was moved from Maryland to Iowa as part of a reorganization of the agency, and the scientists working on the research declined to relocate, jeopardizing the study.
The CDC also removed Cyclospora from its Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, or FoodNet, in 2025 as part of Kennedy's changes to the agency.
Kennedy said the outbreak was "under control" on July 21, when 1,600 people were sick across the country. Dozens of people in Michigan continued to become ill over the following month. The outbreak was ultimately linked to lettuce that was grown in central Mexico by Taylor Farms de Mexico.
The HHS secretary claimed that the allegations that his cuts had reduced the government's ability to respond to the outbreak were "invalid," saying there were "no cuts in the surveillance program."
“We did cuts in the FoodNet program, but they were redundant surveillance," said Kennedy.
El-Sayed said Thursday that he aims "to understand why he's... done this, the decision-making that's gone on, and what we need to do to solve the problem in its depth. And that takes understanding the nature of the problem."
He added that legislation could come out of an investigation.
"There's no reason that we couldn't have one clean bill, right? The Crap Lettuce Elimination Act, whatever we want to call it, to just make sure that we have a FDA that's functioning," said El-Sayed. "It's not just lettuce. We're talking—seeing recalls in blueberries. We're seeing recalls in blackberries. We're seeing recalls in meat. And that's because the FDA's not working."
The senator-elect also said the ascent of Kennedy, who has publicly questioned the safety of vaccines and halted immunization research, is among the Trump administration appointments that raise questions about how President Donald Trump is selecting his nominees for top government positions.
“I think this administration has shown that the decisions that they make about who is engaged in government, leading government, that that's more about backroom deals and who curries favor than it is about their capacity to do the job," said El-Sayed. "When you nominate somebody like RFK Jr., who is anti-science, to run HHS, what you get is a bunch of nasty crap lettuce in the state of Michigan."
When considering Trump's nominees as a senator, El-Sayed added, "I'm going to assume I'm not going to support you until proven otherwise. So the bar is going to be extremely high. I want to know that this person was chosen on their merit and the capacity to serve the American public."
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Beyond Climate Chaos and Militarized Security at COP31
COP31 must be more than another conference of promises. It should mark a political turning point where climate action, peace building, and disarmament, including nuclear disarmament, are recognized as mutually reinforcing priorities.
Nov 04, 2026
The climate crisis will not wait for geopolitics to improve. As leaders gather in Antalya, Türkiye from 9-20 November 2026 for the 31st Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP31, the world enters a moment where extreme weather, energy insecurity, armed conflict, and rising militarization reinforce one another. Half measures are no longer enough. Governments must arrive with the courage to act and leave Türkiye with commitments equal to the crises already unfolding: record heat, devastating floods, mass displacement, and fragile energy systems.
COP31’s agenda is demanding: accelerating the just energy transition; closing the adaptation finance gap; strengthening early-warning systems; and improving transparency in emissions reporting, including sectors long exempted from scrutiny. A strong El Niño is developing against exceptionally warm oceans, increasing the likelihood of extreme heat, drought, floods, and disruptive rainfall. These risks translate into deaths, displacement, damaged infrastructure, food insecurity, and pressure on communities already affected by conflict and poverty. Climate inaction is increasingly a failure to protect human security.
Climate Risks as Human Risks
Human security is climate security. Climate impacts are not statistics; they are lived realities for families, elders, persons with disabilities, and communities already carrying the weight of conflict and poverty.
The climate crisis demands a redefinition of security: one that prioritizes human survival over military prestige.
Over decades of work in health, disability, humanitarian action, and human security, I have learned that crises rarely arrive one at a time. For people already living with illness, disability, displacement, poverty, or insecurity, one disruption can quickly become another: Electricity fails, essential services are interrupted, mobility becomes harder, and the margin between vulnerability and catastrophe narrows.
For peace and disarmament campaigners, the message is clear: The world cannot confront climate chaos while expanding military systems, fossil fuel dependence, and nuclear arsenals that deepen insecurity. Global military expenditure reached about $2.9 trillion in 2025, the highest level ever recorded. At the same time, developing countries face a severe shortfall in the finance required to adapt to climate change. The question is not whether governments have resources, but what they choose to define as security.
Military activities depend heavily on fossil fuels and generate substantial greenhouse gas emissions through aircraft, ships, vehicles, bases, procurement, and supply chains. One major assessment estimated that the global military carbon footprint could account for about 5.5% of global emissions, while noting serious gaps in reporting. National security exemptions must not become a blind spot in climate accountability.
Nuclear weapons add an even more severe dimension. Their production, testing, deployment, and potential use carry catastrophic environmental consequences. The use of even a fraction of the world’s nuclear weapons would trigger a nuclear winter scenario: global cooling, crop failure, and mass starvation. Such an event would undo decades of climate progress and plunge humanity into a combined climate-nuclear catastrophe.
Energy insecurity provides another warning. Disruption around the Strait of Hormuz has shown how dependence on concentrated fossil fuel supply routes exposes economies to geopolitical shocks and price volatility. True energy security must mean reducing dependence on vulnerable fossil fuel systems through renewable energy, efficiency, storage, and electrification.
There are encouraging signs. The Santa Marta process has brought governments together around cooperation for a fair transition away from coal, oil, and gas. The Electrify Now coalition seeks to accelerate electrification and expand renewable-powered energy systems. These initiatives show that cooperation remains possible even in a fractured geopolitical environment.
But solidarity must extend further. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that developing countries may need more than $300 billion annually for adaptation by 2035, several times current international public adaptation finance. Those who contributed least to historical emissions are often among those facing the greatest consequences. Delivering climate finance is not charity. It is responsibility and justice.
COP31 also exposes a political reality: Some governments continue to resist global consensus on climate ambition, transparency, and equitable finance. Their withdrawal from collective commitments weakens global action and directly harms communities whose security depends on adaptation, resilience, and stable public services. When governments step back from responsibility, the burden falls on the most vulnerable. This is not a policy gap; it is a human cost.
The Military Footprint in a Warming World
For the disarmament community, COP31 offers a critical opportunity to challenge the assumption that militarization, and especially nuclear deterrence, is the natural answer to climate insecurity. Border fortification, arms races, and competition over resources deepen vulnerability rather than resolve it. Climate stress can aggravate existing tensions, but it does not inevitably cause war. The appropriate response is cooperation, equitable adaptation, resilient public services, and peaceful management of shared resources.
Nuclear weapons offer no protection against climate extremes. They cannot stop heatwaves, floods, or droughts. They cannot rebuild destroyed infrastructure or feed displaced families. Yet they absorb enormous financial, scientific, and political resources that could instead strengthen climate resilience. Every dollar spent on modernizing nuclear arsenals is a dollar not spent on clean energy, adaptation, or public health. The climate crisis demands a redefinition of security: one that prioritizes human survival over military prestige.
Climate and disarmament campaigners should therefore ask governments to make the connections visible. Military emissions should be measured and reported transparently. Climate finance should not be crowded out by escalating military and nuclear expenditure. Investments should shift toward clean energy, public health, resilient infrastructure, adaptation, and human security. Security policy must protect people, not merely territory.
Throughout decades of humanitarian and public service, one truth has remained constant: Our common future can only be secured through collective action. As extreme weather intensifies and energy systems remain vulnerable to geopolitical shocks, the world will be watching Antalya.
My years in humanitarian and public service have shown that real security begins with protecting people, not power. That is the responsibility we owe to future generations.
A Turning Point for COP31
COP31 must be more than another conference of promises. It should mark a political turning point where climate action, peace building, and disarmament, including nuclear disarmament, are recognized as mutually reinforcing priorities.
The time for treating these crises separately has passed. The world is already beyond the breaking point. The task now is to build a safer way forward: for the climate, for peace, and for the generations who will inherit the consequences of today’s choices.
Call for Action at COP31
COP31 must deliver concrete steps that reflect the urgency of the climate and human security crisis. Governments should commit to:
- Transparent reporting of military emissions within global MRV systems;
- Redirecting part of military and nuclear budgets toward climate adaptation and clean energy;
- Launching an international pathway to reduce the military carbon footprint;
- Closing the adaptation finance gap in line with UNEP estimates; and
- Embedding human security in climate policy.
Climate security is human security. COP31 must be a turning point toward cooperation, responsibility, and shared survival.
The measure of COP31 should therefore not be what governments say about security, but whether their decisions leave people safer, healthier, and better able to survive the crises ahead.
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The Real Emergency Is Dirty Air and Higher Bills While Polluters Profit
When our government makes decisions about how we get power in our communities, they are also making decisions about whose health and wealth we protect; we should not have to pay the price while corporate polluters and data centers benefit.
Nov 02, 2026
$295 million; 200,000 kids with asthma.
That’s the cost of keeping a Michigan coal plant running after it was supposed to close. Now, customers across the Midwest are being forced to pick up the tab—in more ways than one.
Last year, the US Department of Energy (DOE) declared an emergency order to force a coal plant in West Olive to remain open past its scheduled closing. In September, a federal court ruled that this move was unlawful. By ordering the plant to stay open past its planned retirement, the Trump administration made Consumers Energy pay $295 million to keep it running—the equivalent of more than $615,000 per day passed on to consumer energy bills.
Let’s make sure we all fight for a Michigan where future generations can live, work, learn, pray, and play safely in clean air.
This is a story playing out across the country: Federal decisions are keeping power plants online and putting corporate profits over public health while driving up energy costs. Since May 2025, the Trump DOE has ordered seven fossil-fuel power plants in six states to remain open past their planned retirement.
When our government makes decisions about how we get power in our communities, they are also making decisions about whose health and wealth we protect. Our families should not have to pay the price while corporate polluters and data centers benefit. The Trump administration wants you to believe in fabricated emergencies in order to pay for rising energy costs—costs largely driven by the artificial intelligence data center buildout. But the real emergency is the cost we’re paying with our health, our wallets, and our future—the kind of cost that shows up on our utility bills and in countless doctor appointments, school absences, missed work days, and hospital visits.
Power plants are a major source of pollution, releasing dangerous greenhouse emissions and hazardous air pollutants like mercury, soot, and smog. Air pollution is a public health crisis in the United States that disproportionately affects people of color, and communities of color are more likely to live near power plants, and are most vulnerable to climate impacts. The US saw more deaths from air pollution in 2021 than any other high-income country.
That’s why we spend every day fighting for the right to clean air.
For decades, we have worked to connect environmental health protection with the values that guide our lives. Through the Green Door Initiative based in Detroit, statewide Michigan Green Muslims, and with the national Clean Air for the Long Haul coalition, we work with communities to put our values into practice—greening our schools, creating air monitoring and workforce development programs, and helping families understand the real costs and injustices of the energy systems around them.
This work begins with a simple understanding that caring for the environment is inseparable from caring for one another. The air we breathe does not stop at a neighborhood boundary, and pollution does not ask what we believe or what we look like before it enters our lungs. We all share the air around us, and we have a responsibility to protect it.
Decisions made in DC can feel removed, but their consequences reach our communities. Three days after the court ruled in Michigan, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the repeal of most of its 2024 carbon standards for power plants and proposed to rescind all remaining regulations that curb power plant pollution. This is part of a larger effort by the federal government to roll back over 30 clean air and climate protections. Once again, the administration’s polluter-first agenda is prioritizing financial benefits for big business while intentionally ignoring public health harms.
Closer to home, DTE, Michigan’s largest utility, has proposed new gas plants as it plans for much higher electricity demand, and watchdogs say data centers are driving that need. Michigan customers could be left to pay for polluting power plants that leave them with blackouts to feed energy-hungry and water-thirsty data centers instead.
We must demand better. Urge the Michigan Public Service Commission to reject new gas plants and retire existing coal plants on schedule. Submit a letter on EPA’s proposal to roll back the power plant standards. Explain who you are, where you live, and why clean air is a human right for you and your family. Every story makes a difference.
Let’s make sure we all fight for a Michigan where future generations can live, work, learn, pray, and play safely in clean air. That’s something worth investing in.
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Ahead of COP31, 146 Scientists Urge UN to Declare Climate Change a Global Health Emergency
"The health harms of climate change are growing faster than the world's response to them, and in many cases even accelerating."
Oct 28, 2026
With less than two weeks to go until the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP31, brings world leaders to Antalya, Türkiye to discuss the need to transition away from fossil fuels, nearly 150 international experts warned that climate change brought on by greenhouse gas emissions constitutes a "global health emergency" whose harms are accelerating.
The "2026 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change," written by researchers at University College London and the World Health Organization (WHO) and published in The Lancet, tracks dozens of indicators that link climate change to public health, including drought, extreme hurricanes and flooding, and economic losses.
But one top indicator that planetary heating has caused a worsening public health crisis is the extreme heat that was blamed for more than 50,000 deaths across Europe this summer, and which could lead to 450,000 excess deaths in the coming months as the climate emergency is compounded by this year's "Super El Niño."
According to the report, annual average heat-related deaths have surged by nearly 36% since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2015, securing pledges from governments to draw down fossil fuel emissions, compared to the decade preceding the deal.
More than 70% of the 710,000 heat-related deaths recorded in 2023 were found to be attributed to climate change, and between 2016-23, 68% of the world's 540,800 heat-related deaths were linked to the warming planet. The previous decade, 55% of deaths caused by extreme heat were blamed on the climate emergency.
"These numbers point to a clear emergency," said climate health researcher Marina Romanello, the executive director of the Lancet Countdown. "The risks become even more profound when you consider how different hazards interact and compound. At the same time, drought is spreading, and the world is swinging to water extremes, some drying out, while others are flooding."
"Progress has been too slow, too small, and isn't reaching those who need it most."
The report was published less than two months after a glacial collapse killed at least 1,000 people in Nepal and Tibet as it sent sudden extreme flooding down a mountain into a number of towns.
Türkiye, where COP31 is set to begin on November 9, was one place where massive wildfires spread rapidly this summer, while hundreds of thousands of people in Spain and France were also displaced by fast-moving blazes.
And in August, more than 5,000 square miles of forest burned in the Northwest Territories in Canada, sparking public health concerns when smoke drifted thousands of miles south to the continental United States.
"A decade after the Paris Agreement, our findings are unambiguous: The health harms of climate change are growing faster than the world's response to them, and in many cases even accelerating," said Romanello.
Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, head of the climate change and health unit at WHO, said the report "demonstrates that climate action is a health intervention. Cleaner energy, stronger health systems and early warning systems are saving lives today. As countries prepare for COP31, placing health at the center of climate policies can help protect communities, strengthen resilience, and deliver immediate benefits for people’s health and wellbeing."
The 146 scientists who authored the report noted that strides have been made in some countries in expanding clean energy infrastructure, passing health protection regulations, and preparing health systems for climate-related crises and conditions.
But in the US, the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, the Trump administration has blocked renewable energy projects and rolled back regulations meant to reduce people's exposure to harmful emissions.
"Progress has been too slow, too small, and isn't reaching those who need it most," said Romanello. "That is why we are calling for climate change to be formally recognized as a global health emergency, with health placed at the center of every climate decision."
The report was released a week after the UN Environment Program warned that achieving the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures is no longer possible, and that world leaders must now focus efforts on ensuring the overshoot is as short-lived as possible.
In the Lancet Countdown, the researchers called on the UN to declare that climate change is a public health emergency of international concern, which could require an international response.
"Priorities," said WHO, "include accelerating reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, increasing support for adaptation, and expanding investments that strengthen health system resilience."
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Former Top GOP Strategist Says It's 'Unimaginable' That US Won't Have Medicare for All Within 20 Years
"This is just a matter of how long are we going to delay this?”
Oct 26, 2026
A prominent former Republican political strategist said Monday that he believes it's just a matter of time before the United States adopts a Medicare for All universal healthcare system, citing the popularity of the program for older Americans across the political spectrum.
"Close your eyes and think about what will America be like in 20 years," Stuart Stevens—a senior strategist for Mitt Romney's failed 2012 presidential campaign—said during an MS NOW panel discussion hosted by Katy Tur. "It is unimaginable we will not have a national health plan."
"We're already the only Western country that doesn't," Stevens noted. "And this is just a matter of how long are we going to delay this?"
" Medicare is wildly popular," he said. "So you can see what the appeal of Medicare for All is."
"Why shouldn't everybody have Medicare?" Stevens asked. "I mean, it's the wealthiest country in the history of the world."
Stevens noted that the prospect of universal healthcare is "getting a tremendous response," even "from people who aren't exactly on the far left."
"So I think this is an issue that's changing," he added.
Responding to Stevens comments, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told Common Dreams that Medicare for All will ultimately happen in the United States "because it is not just a moral imperative but makes economic sense," as study after study has shown.
"It's what will truly reduce the cost of our system," Khanna said.
A KFF survey released earlier this month found that 66% of Americans favor Medicare for All, the highest level of support since the organization began tracking the proposal. Support included 84% of Democrats, 72% of independents, and 34% of Republicans—up from just 21% of Republicans in 2020.
A separate Axios-Ipsos poll, also published this month, found that 43% of Americans supported the proposal, compared with just 24% opposed, while 21% of Republicans backed it.
Multiple studies have shown that Medicare for All would save lives—and money. Most recently, researchers at Yale University estimated that implementing such a system would save over 114,000 lives annually while reducing healthcare expenditures by more than $1 billion per year.
Stevens' comments came as Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)—a possible 2028 presidential candidate—said his party needs to pursue Medicare for All if it succeeds in winning control of the Senate next week.
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'Blatant Hypocrisy': Trump Signs Executive Order on Women’s Health—While Attacking Women's Health
"This is an attempt to change the headlines, not women’s lives.”
Oct 19, 2026
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday to promote women's health. But advocates say it's an example of "blatant hypocrisy" after his administration slashed healthcare access and medical research funding.
The initiative, promoted by First Lady Melania Trump, establishes a new Women's Health Division within the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a White House task force to advance research into conditions disproportionately affecting women, like heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, and endometriosis.
During a speech on Monday, Trump said the task force "will mobilize the entire federal government to coordinate action focused on improving women's health." He added that it would be led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom he said "has been fantastic" even though he’s "a little different."
Critics were quick to point out that the order doesn’t provide any new research funding and that the Trump administration has canceled nearly half a billion dollars in NIH research funding, some of which supported research into the very diseases the order mentions.
Following years of growth in women's health research, a Washington Post analysis found that under Kennedy, the number of competitively funded NIH research projects mentioning women fell by 31% in 2025, amid the administration's crusade against so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
In April, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)—who faces a tough reelection campaign—criticized these cuts, saying that "the administration's emphasis on canceling diversity-related grants has resulted in less research aimed at women's health."
The new order also revokes two Biden-era directives on women's health research, which had helped secure nearly $1 billion in funding. Trump's order provides no additional research funding. It also does not specify what will happen to the existing funds.
"Women’s health has long been ignored as a federal priority, and while we agree that steps must be taken to close disparities in women’s healthcare, it’s hard not to point out the blatant hypocrisy of this unfunded order coming from an administration that is actively decimating healthcare access for women," said Dorianne Mason, senior director of health equity and contraceptive access at the National Women's Law Center (NWLC).
"From the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s cuts to Medicaid and the defunding of Planned Parenthood, to gutting the federal Office of Minority Health and slashing funding for women’s health research, this administration has made it clear that it doesn’t actually care about women’s healthcare needs, despite what this weak executive order attempts to convey," she added.
Last year, Trump signed a GOP budget law that cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid—a program that finances maternity care, reproductive healthcare, as well as routine health services for around 39 million low-income women.
Under Kennedy, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has rescinded federal guidance protecting emergency abortion access and launched a medical review that could restrict access to abortion pills.
“With RFK Jr. at the HHS helm, millions of women are paying more for healthcare and have less access to services they need,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of Protect Our Care. “Secretary Kennedy has tried to scrap any research grant or program that dares to fix women’s health disparities—and disproportionately fired women doctors and career scientists en masse. He’s fought tooth and nail to restrict access to abortion medication even when the lives and health of women depend on it, including patients dealing with a horrific ectopic pregnancy."
Polls show that Trump and Republicans are performing dismally among women. According to a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday, just 30% of women said they approved of Trump’s job performance, and 61% wanted Democrats to control Congress.
Noting that the midterm elections were just weeks away, Mason said Trump's announcement of a women's health initiative "is an attempt to change the headlines, not women’s lives.”
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Toxic Betrayal: Report Details How Trump Duped His MAHA Base by Appeasing Corporate Interests
The MAHA movement "reminded the American public of the dangers of toxic chemicals in our air and water... But then the Trump administration either did nothing—or gave industry permission to pollute more.”
Oct 19, 2026
It's been seven months since more than 30 leaders of the "Make America Healthy Again" movement told the Trump administration that they were losing patience, and demanded to see evidence that the US Environmental Protection Agency took seriously millions of Americans' concerns about toxic "forever chemicals" and microplastics.
"MAHA is a mandate, not a marketing campaign," the advocates told EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, calling for an end to both corporate-friendly loopholes in regulations and the "revolving door" that saw chemical lobbyists hired by the agency tasked with regulating the industry.
But on Monday, the government watchdog Public Citizen revealed that 20 out of 21 environmental chemicals that the White House pledged to address in its May 2025 "MAHA Report" have been subject to less, not more, regulation under the Trump administration.
For nine of the chemicals, including the carcinogenic herbicide atrazine, mercury, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—often called forever chemicals—President Donald Trump and his top officials have loosened public health regulations.
For 10 of them, the administration has taken none of the action promised in the MAHA Report, and in the case of the cancer-causing herbicide glyphosate, Trump issued an executive order not only endorsing the use of the chemical but mandating its production—a year after Bayer, the parent company of the chemical firm that uses glyphosate in popular weedkiller Roundup, donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural campaign.
Public Citizen found just one substance, microplastics, for which the administration has "taken any step toward regulation, and at best it was a baby step"—announcing in April that microplastics may be considered for regulation in the future and that the government would study measuring and removing them from the human body.
The report identifies the lifted limits on forever chemicals, loosened regulations on air pollution, and action on glyphosate as "among the most egregious betrayals" of the MAHA movement that helped elect Trump.
"These examples show how the Trump administration’s retreat on chemicals in the environment is failing to keep Americans healthy," reads the report.
Despite the warning from MAHA leaders earlier this year, Public Citizen research director Peter Whoriskey wrote, the administration's conduct has shown that "MAHA is worse than an empty slogan. It’s a sham."
Nearly two years into Trump's second term in office—despite the fact that MAHA leader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the president's secretary of health and human services—key regulatory posts have been filled by former industry lobbyists and officials, such as David Fotouhi, who as the deputy administrator of the EPA is the agency’s second-highest official.
During his legal career, Fotouhi defended the company International Paper when it was sued for contaminating the environment with forever chemicals.
Eight out of 10 top leadership roles at the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and the Office of Air and Radiation are filled by "officials, lawyers, and lobbyists who previously worked for chemical oil, chemical, and agriculture companies," reads the report.
"For years, Kennedy, like other leaders in the MAHA movement, accused federal regulators of being controlled by corporate lobbyists and failing to protect Americans from dangerous industrial and agricultural chemicals. Accordingly, they campaigned to curtail corporate influence at the EPA and other federal agencies," wrote Whoriskey.
But with Kennedy at his side, "the Trump administration has not only accommodated industry demands but appointed industry lobbyists and other officials to senior positions in the EPA."
The report also takes aim at persistent claims by Trump administration officials, including in the MAHA Report, that they will use "gold standard science" to evaluate environmental dangers.
The White House has made that all but impossible by disbanding the Office of Research and Development, which has conducted research on the impact of chemicals on humans, the report says.
The government's top air pollution research facility in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was also shut down, while all the members of the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee were ousted.
“The MAHA Report reminded the American public of the dangers of toxic chemicals in our air and water,” said Whoriskey in a statement. “It was described as a ‘call to action.’ But then the Trump administration either did nothing—or gave industry permission to pollute more.”
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Something Else to Worry About: Biological Weapons
Recent reports that a young woman working in a Russian biolab became ill and died echo Annie Jacobsen’s new book, Biological War: A Scenario. How concerned should we be?
Oct 17, 2026
A few months ago, I ordered a pre-publication copy of Annie Jacobsen’s new non-fiction book, Biological War: A Scenario, which followed on from her excellent book, Nuclear War: A Scenario—not because I enjoy reading about existential risks, but because I’m an information seeker and feel that it’s important to stay informed. But when it arrived a few weeks later, in spite of having written an opinion piece about her nuclear book, entitled, “Why We Avoid Thinking About Nuclear War—and Why We Shouldn’t,” after seeing the frightening cover illustration of men in hazmat suits, I stashed it on the bookshelf of my study rather than reading it—for the same reasons I discussed in my earlier piece: I didn’t want to know!
But after the recent reports of a biolab accident in Russia, I retrieved it from the bookshelf and read it in two days.
The “scenario” in the book is that of a “biological weapons lab accident,” where a scientist working to modify pneumonic plague into a deadly biological weapon experiences remorse and tries to destroy it. But the small fire he lights causes an explosion that propels the Yersinia pestis bacteria (which causes the plague) into the atmosphere. In the process, he becomes infected with his weaponized pneumonic plague, although he doesn’t yet know it.
Although most of us cannot directly influence negotiations about strengthening the BWC, there are things that we can do to support such efforts and to lessen the increasingly grave dangers that confront us.
The next morning, he goes to an Orthodox church to confess where, by coughing in the midst of confession, he infects the priest, as well as the next person in line—a pre-med foreign exchange student, who is back in this small Russian town visiting family—before returning to the US shortly thereafter, where he is studying and doing volunteer work with homeless people. The student subsequently infects scores on Skid Row, who, in turn, infect the first responders who come to help them and, ultimately, the whole city of Los Angeles.
Following his confession, the scientist goes into the woods to shoot himself but collapses from the symptoms of plague. He is found by men on an international hunting trip, who administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and carry him back to their hunting lodge, where he is collected by officials. After dining together, using the same sauna and steam bath, and driving to the airport in the same van, seven of the hunters board flights to six of the world’s seven continents, while another goes off on a sea cruise—spreading pneumonic plague on their flights and sea voyage—and ultimately around the world.
In the real-world scenario, reported on October 2, Darya Shipilova, a 28-year old laboratory technician working in an “Anti-Plague Institute” in Irkutsk, Siberia died, according to Russian officials, of “a pneumonia of unknown etiology.” A Russian news agency reported that she had broken a test tube containing live bacteria of the pneumonic plague pathogen, leading to widespread speculation that she had, indeed, died of pneumonic plague.
These concerns were reinforced by reports that Russian health authorities imposed sweeping quarantine restrictions on the lab where she worked, the hospital where she died, and other nearby hospitals. Neighbors also reported that workers in protective suits and gas masks repeatedly disinfected the building where she lived, telling residents that it was “for cockroaches,” although the building has no cockroaches. More recently, Russia’s health agency asserted that the plague was not detected in follow-up tests of “thousands of people in the region.”
The overall opacity (a familiar playbook for crises in Russia) of Russian public health officials in responding to urgent requests for more information from the World Health Organization, the US, and other governments led to considerable disquiet around the world.
When asked if her death was related to a bioweapon, President Donald Trump responded, not very reassuringly, “We don’t think so.” He also acknowledged the similarities in how Chinese officials handled Covid-19 before it became a global pandemic: “China didn’t say much, and Russia is not saying much either.”
The Biological Weapons Convention Was Supposed to Prevent This, Then Came the Secret Soviet Biological Weapons Program
The 1925 Geneva Protocol banned the use of biological weapons, but not their development or possession. Although ratified by a number of countries in the 1920s and 30s, it wasn’t ratified by the US until 1975.
After 27 years of a US biological weapons program, President Richard Nixon unexpectedly announced on November 25, 1969 that the US would unilaterally end its offensive biological weapons program, stating, “The United States shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare… [and] confine its biological research to defensive measures such as immunization and safety measures.” Over the next years, US biological weapons stocks were destroyed with the process completed in May 1972.
Subsequently, the United Nations Conference on Disarmament negotiated “The Biological Weapons Convention” (BWC), the first multilateral treaty to ban an entire class of weapons of mass destruction. It was opened for signature on April 10, 1972 and signed by the US, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union the same day. It entered into force on March 26, 1975. Currently, it has 189 State Parties and four Signatory States, with only four States outside the Convention.
Because it was the first of its kind, however, the BWC lacked the important monitoring and verification procedures that were later included in the Chemical Weapons Convention. There are no mandatory verified declarations of biological facilities or activities; no inspections or site visits to verify compliance; no international organization to oversee implementation; and no penalties for non-compliance, although complaints can be made to the UN Security Council (which are subject to veto by any of the five Permanent Members). Only four staff are involved in its tiny Implementation Support Unit, compared with over 500 for the Chemical Weapons Convention.
In spite of the Soviet Union becoming a signatory to the BWC in 1972, the USSR continued to covertly develop and produce offensive biological weapons in what became the world’s largest and most sophisticated biological weapons program, with 40-50 biological research facilities scattered around the country, employing 65,000 people. The aim was to create “exotic biological weapons using techniques made possible by recombinant DNA.” Recombinant DNA, also called genetic engineering, involves joining the DNA from two entirely different species to make new pathogens.
Not detecting this vast biological weapons program was one of the biggest intelligence failures of the Cold War as it was totally unknown in the West until 1989, when a Soviet scientist, Vladimir Pasechnik, defected, shocking the British Intelligence Services and the CIA with details of the massive program and its deadly stockpiles. They learned that the Soviets had “genetically engineered a strain of Yersinia pestis to resist antibiotics” and had also stockpiled vast volumes of other deadly pathogens in the labs’ freezers, such as smallpox, anthrax, ebola, Marburg virus disease, and many others—all weaponized to kill populations in the most diabolical manner.
The terrifying extent of this biowarfare program was later confirmed by other defecting Soviet scientists, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In January 1992, Boris Yeltsin admitted that he knew about the program and pledged to close down the institutes, retire their directors, and ask for international inspections. But the two generals he appointed to carry out this mission resisted his orders. In 1992, a Trilateral Agreement was signed by Russia with the United States and the United Kingdom “promising to end biological weapons programs and convert facilities to benevolent purposes, but compliance with the agreement—and the fate of the former Soviet bio-agents and facilities—is still mostly undocumented.”
The State Department’s 2025 compliance report states: “The United States assesses that Russia maintains an offensive biological warfare program and is in violation of its obligations under Article I and II of the BWC… Key military biological facilities associated with the Soviet offensive program remain, inaccessible and not transparent, nearly 30 years after Yeltsin’s decree.”
Jacobsen’s Book Is Based on the Secret Soviet Biological Weapons Program
The latter part of Jacobsen’s book deals with the breakdown of law and order, as mass death and panic take hold and cause chaos. Ultimately, the president deploys the Insurrection Act, whereby military forces attempt to establish martial law for the first time in American history. Just as they are about to release the strategic national stockpiles of medicine, scientists at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease receive their first bacterial specimens (from the infected hunter who landed in Dallas and died in a local hospital). Microbiologists in biocontainment suits examine the specimens, and plague cultures are grown and used to test for antibiotic resistance in small animals. Simultaneously, microbiologists extract DNA from the specimen and feed it into a high-speed sequencing machine to get a genetic fingerprint of the pathogen.
What they discover is appalling—the organism has been bioengineered and “looks alarmingly like a 21st century version of something Russian scientists worked on during the Soviet-era secret biological weapons programs.” It is a combination of two pathogens, one concealed within another, referred to as a “bobby-trap bio-weapon,” whereby, after a person becomes infected with pneumonic plague and takes antibiotics as soon as possible under the assumption they will be cured, the antibiotics trigger the chimera weapon’s bobby-trap mechanism—in this fictional case, the Venezuelan equine encephalitis gene which has been covertly spliced into the Yersinia pestis genome to cause acute neurological symptoms and death. As a result, there is no cure.
The book is not meant to create unnecessary fear. It is meant to make clear what is now possible, and what is at stake. The tools to engineer life are advancing faster than the rules that govern them. This gap is where existential danger lives. The point is not panic; the point is pressure. To demand guardrails, oversight, and accountability before the science outruns our ability to control it. Before we set something irreversible in motion.
Although the real-life situation in Siberia will hopefully not turn out to be the same as in Annie Jacobsen’s book, it should cause us to take notice.
Attempts to Improve the Biological Weapons Convention
Serious attempts have been made in the past to strengthen the BWC but without success. An Ad Hoc Group labored from 1995 to 2001 to create a protocol where states would submit declarations of treaty-relevant facilities and activities to an international body that would conduct routine on-site visits, as well as challenge inspections of suspect facilities and activities. But the draft was rejected by the US under President George W. Bush, who argued that it could harm US national security. Nothing more happened for many years.
Another attempt is currently underway, although progress is slow. A Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Working Group was established at the 2022 BWC Review Conference and has been working steadily over the last four years to come up with the text of draft recommendations before the 2027 BWC Review Conference. At their August meeting this year, 90.6% of the text had been agreed, although fundamental disagreements over verification frameworks, transfer controls, and funding remain—and tensions are high.
The chair of the Working Group has highlighted the urgency, arguing that the sudden convergence of artificial intelligence and biology is “creating new security challenges,” warning that a gap “may emerge between these rapidly advancing capabilities and our collective ability to understand their governance and prevent their misuse.”
What We Can Do
Although most of us cannot directly influence negotiations about strengthening the BWC, there are things that we can do to support such efforts and to lessen the increasingly grave dangers that confront us.
We can be sure to vote in the upcoming midterms for Democratic candidates, who have been more likely to support regulatory controls in Congress, as well as multilaterally. We can support these candidates with financial contributions and by working on their campaigns to ensure that they get elected, since time is short. Once elected, we can strive to persuade them to urgently implement appropriate policies.
After all, who wants human extinction? Presumably, none of us—no matter how jaded we may have become.
We can educate ourselves about the threats by reading widely, including Jacobsen’s excellent books, as well as opinion pieces on the subject, such as ones I’ve written on AI and nuclear weapons. We can do online research to identify, join, financially support, and work with others in public advocacy organizations against threats that are of particular concern to us. We can attend protest rallies and discuss our concerns with friends, encouraging them to also become active, so that we can develop a large public constituency to combat these extreme dangers.
Just a couple of days ago, on October 11, The Lancet Commission on 21st Century Global Threats to Health highlighted 17 major threats to human health over the next 75 years, asserting that, “Malicious use of AI, including bioweapons, and nuclear conflict with nuclear famine [caused by nuclear winter] carry risks of extinction in the next 75 years.” There are so many existential dangers to confront that it can sometimes feel overwhelming and lead us to a state of helplessness when what we need, instead, is a pro-active approach that will foster resourcefulness.
By facing up to our natural tendency to avoid frightening information and by confronting our fears head-on, we can gain a true sense of self-efficacy and social responsibility. In this way, we can save those we love; ensure that future generations thrive; preserve the rich cultural heritage we have created; protect the magnificent array of other species on Earth; and safeguard our beautiful, one-of-a-kind planet—from all of these truly insane and, frankly, evil machinations—often designed by normal people, who have been seduced by competitive processes; rationales that “everyone is doing it”; lucrative remuneration; lapse of conscience; and bad ideas into creating conditions for the most dystopian futures imaginable.
As Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister, former president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, and co-chair of the Commission on Nuclear Proliferation and Disarmament has recently commented with regard to the nuclear threat, “It is up to those of us who passionately believe in both the possibility and necessity of a nuclear weapon free world, however disappointed and frustrated we may be right now, to get out there and continue to campaign our hearts out for it.” I suggest that we extend his call to action to all the existential threats we face. After all, who wants human extinction? Presumably, none of us—no matter how jaded we may have become. We must assume responsibility for the continuation of our kind and choose human survival.
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As Americans Face Affordability Crisis, Poll Reaffirms 'Supporting Medicare for All Is Not Radical'
“Healthcare is one of the significant ways that people experience economic pressure every day,” said Ipsos' president.
Oct 13, 2026
Yet another poll, this one released on Tuesday, shows significant support for Medicare for All as Americans grapple with rising healthcare costs and the Trump administration and congressional Republicans target federal programs upon which tens of millions of people rely.
A plurality—43%—of respondents to the latest Axios-Ipsos American Health Index said they support replacing private health insurance with a government-run Medicare for All system, compared with 24% who oppose the idea. Another 32% were unsure, leaving supporters outnumbering opponents by nearly two to one. Two-thirds of respondents also backed increased federal spending to reduce healthcare costs.
Respondents' views on Medicare for All are divided along party lines, with a majority of Democrats (62%) and a plurality of independents (47%) supporting the proposal, while a majority of Republicans (52%) oppose it.
Again: Supporting Medicare for All is not Radical — opposing it is. We can’t afford NOT to do it. #MedicareForAllNOW www.axios.com/2026/10/13/a...
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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) October 13, 2026 at 5:24 AM
The most commonly cited reason people said they oppose Medicare for All is fear that the quality of care would be inferior to that offered by private health insurance (38%), followed by concern that the program would be too expensive for taxpayers (22%), and that the federal government should not be involved in providing healthcare (21%). Supporters were not asked why they favor Medicare for All.
The survey also revealed deepening distrust of political leaders on healthcare issues. Just 20% of respondents said that they trusted President Donald Trump for health-related information, down from 31% in March 2025, while only 25% trusted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The poll also found that 49% would be less likely to support a candidate who received money from pharmaceutical company political action committees.
"Healthcare is one of the significant ways that people experience economic pressure every day," Mallory Newall, Ipsos senior vice president for US public affairs, told Axios. She noted that while many Americans still "have questions" about Medicare for All, the current level of support for the proposal is "noteworthy—and it is not solely driven by members of the Democratic Party."
Newall said that even if candidates "don't call it Medicare for All," expanding federal healthcare programs so that they cover more people "is a message that can connect with voters" as they prepare to cast their ballots in next month's midterm elections.
The stakes extend beyond Medicare for All. Republicans' sweeping 2025 budget law enacted the biggest cuts to Medicaid in the program's six-decade history, while enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits expired at the beginning of 2026, threatening higher costs for millions of enrollees.
Progressives have cited these and other developments to argue that the private insurance system leaves working-class families vulnerable to corporate profiteers and political attacks.
A separate survey released last week by the health policy research organization KFF found that 66% of Americans favor Medicare for All, the highest level of support since the organization began tracking the issue a decade ago. While 84% of Democrats and 72% of Independents polled backed Medicare for All, 66% of Republican respondents opposed the proposal.
According to a study published in August by researchers at Yale University, shifting to a Medicare for All-type system would save more than 114,000 lives and around $1 trillion annually in the US. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has cited the study while promoting his Medicare for All Act.
"Do not tell me we cannot afford Medicare for All," he said at the time of the study's publication. "What we cannot afford is a broken healthcare system based on greed."
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